I have a good friend who works at the C90 TRACON and, just last month (early November), I was able to tour the facility and job-shadow him.

Being a HUGE enthusiast and hardcore VATSIM controller of the airspace, it was incredible to see everything in action there... I was able to plug in on the Sector 1/4 combined position (118.4 frequency) and watch the final to runway 31C at Midway and eastbound departures from the airport on the foul line, East departure at O'Hare (125.00) on the sideline, and I sat right on the front line between the east and west arrival scopes and plugged in and observed the final to 28 and 22R at O'Hare.

I've never been more impressed by the skill those controllers demonstrate and, preparing to enter this career soon, I hope to be working at C90 side-by-side with those gentlemen one day...

Some interesting information regarding the airspace...

Spring 2008 - ZAU just baught into 5 new southbound RNAV departure routings to replace the southern ORD1/MDW4 departure VORs/fixes. These will be much like the recent eastern RNAV routings in place right now (EBAKE, DUFEE, MOBLE, LEWKE).

Summer 2008 - new radar scopes

Fall (November) 2008 - addition of the new runway 9L/27R, new north tower opens, runway 10/28 renamed runway 10L, 28R. New RNAV STARs which will be RNAV to the downwind begin and the use of "trip simuls" begins to the three parallels which will involve the introduction of new runway configurations to the airport.

I'm excited to see more feeds come up! The guys at Chicago really are some of the best I've ever seen...